


Big Brother

by notoneforreality



Series: R&D (Relationships and Dynamics) [7]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Autistic Character, Everyone in Six is scared of him, M/M, Mycroft Holmes IS the British Government, Mycroft's Meddling, Protective Big Brother Mycroft, Q (James Bond) is a Holmes, autistic traits, everyone is confused, except Q, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25427584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/notoneforreality
Summary: Now that Mycroft has met James, he thinks it's safe to meet the rest of Six. Q doesn't agree but no one asked him, so now he's stuck with many people asking many questions about how exactly he knows The British Government.In which Q has done nothing wrong (except not tell his brother that he nearly died).
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: R&D (Relationships and Dynamics) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790158
Comments: 8
Kudos: 284





	Big Brother

Mycroft seems to take James’ new knowledge of his existence as permission to get even more involved. Eve turns up in Q’s door at oh-six hundred, just as he’s booting up his desktop, and raises her eyebrows at him. He doesn’t quail, but only just. Stronger men than he have died after a raise of those eyebrows. James, for one.

“What the fuck have you done?” she says.

“Nothing illegal, and certainly nothing anyone can prove.” The response is automatic, and Eve’s eyebrows take an a decidedly more amused tilt, which means she’s not here to castrate him. He bounces his knee under the desk. “Why?”

“Westminster is here to see you, and M wants you in his office in two hours.” One eyebrow goes down, so she can look both dubious and intrigued. “Why would  _ he _ want to see you?”

She says the ‘he’ with enough emphasis that Q knows she doesn’t mean M. He doesn’t answer either way, just makes a face and turns to his computer to see if his suspicions are correct.

“Upstairs have lost their heads about it,” Eve is saying as Q’s hands fly over the keyboard, pulling up every camera feed he can to watch Jerome’s Jaguar make the journey from Mycroft’s to Vauxhall. “I was in the field last time he dropped in, but I know he’s dangerous. Are you sure you haven’t done anything?”

_ (The last time Mycroft dropped in was two weeks after Q had started his new job in the corner of Q-Branch, going by Ford Prefect and primarily spending his time checking the coding written by people further up the pecking order. The Q at the time had been rather flustered when Mycroft deigned to poke his nose into the basement offices, and slightly confused at why one of his new hires was glaring at the man that encompassed the British Government.) _

“Absolutely sure,” Q says, and then, because he’s tired and he doesn’t want to have to deal with this right now and also because he trusts Eve, he says, “He’s just annoyed that he found out about me not-dying from Sherlock instead of from me.”

Eve blinks, and Q gives her a moment to try to work it out while he pulls up his emails, finding the flagged message three down in his inbox. It’s been sent to everyone, which means he’ll have a wonderful time talking everyone out of hysteria when they make it into the office. 

On some level, from a distant memory, Q understands the horror and fear that Mycroft inspires in most people, but it had rather worn off for him when he was about seven. 

“Sorry,” Eve says, when she’s obviously given up trying to understand Q’s previous statement. “Sherlock?”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Q says. “You’ve met him.”

Eve’s confused expression doesn’t clear, just changes. “The man from a few months ago? That you spoke to before we got orders to let him go? What’s he got to do with you and Westminster?”

“They’re my brothers,” Q says, half distracted by drafting an email to the minions telling them not to panic and assuring them that the visit is to do with him and no one else; they’re not being audited or tested or assessed.

Despite the unanticipated arrival of Mycroft (okay, a little anticipated; he’s known it was coming since Sherlock found out about the bomb), Q’s feeling good enough to look up at Eve’s ear, and he can see her wide, baffled stare in the periphery of his vision.

“Your brother is the British Government?”

“Mostly,” he says. “And the other one is the world’s only consulting detective and a very long thorn in the side of the Metropolitan Police. We all ended up working for UK law somehow.”

“Right,” Eve says, in a tone that suggests everything is not all right. “Well, I’ve got things to do. I’ll see you up by M’s office at eight?”

“You will.” Q waves as she leaves, and then spots the first trickle of minions coming in and hurriedly finishes the email, hitting send and then striding out into the main office room, ready to do damage control already.

Luckily not too many people freak out. Mycroft hasn’t been around in a while, and Q’s not one of the people who whisper about him because he doesn’t need to keep up with the rumours, so none of the new minions have heard anything from him. A few of them say they’ve heard talk about him from various Double-ohs, or people in different branches, or R.

R is positively thrilled by the revelation that Westminster is coming to visit, and immediately demands to know why Westminster is coming for Q in particular.

“I’ve never met him, but everyone says he’s terrifying,” she says after she’s read both emails and cornered Q in his office. “Bobby said Beaufort cried because Westminster looked at him.”

“Beaufort is an idiot,” Q says. It’s one of the few commonly-known facts in Vauxhall Cross. 

The noise R makes is considering and calculating, and Q’s not surprised when she asks, “What have you done?”

“Nothing!” In fact, doing nothing is the reason he’s in trouble. He should have told Mycroft about the bomb, but that was only ever going to end up with him hovering and trying to protect Q, like Q isn’t perfectly capable of protecting himself and his staff. Not a single person had been injured in the attack; he’d only ended up hurt because he had a meltdown after and smacked his head against the wall a few times to try to stop the horrible floating dizziness. 

“Sure,” R says, but she sounds skeptical. Q makes a face. R doesn’t leave the doorway. “Can I meet him.”

Q pauses, waiting for his auditory processing to catch up, because R can’t have said what he thought she just said. Then, when no alternative is forthcoming, he blinks and says, “You want to meet Mycroft?”

“Mycroft?” 

There’s an equal chance her questioning tone means ‘You know Westminster’s name?’, ‘You call the British Government by his first name?’, or even just ‘Westminster has a name?’, but Q doesn’t bother explaining. It’s ten to eight and Mycroft might kill him if he’s late to their first meeting after he didn’t die.

He sighs. “He’ll be down later. I’ll make introductions. Try to keep the branch halfway calm.”

“Got it,” R says, and ducks back out of his office.

The clock above the door ticks and Q huffs and grabs his jacket, stuffing the fidget pen into his pocket. Time to face the wrath of big brother.

In her office, just outside of M’s, Eve is waiting for him. She tells him in an odd tone that she’s spoken to James, who will definitely be down to Q-Branch later, and that they’re going to the pub after this for a proper explanation and all the alcohol needed to process it. 

Then, before she can say anything else, the door opens and Anthea slips out. Eve stares at her. Anthea ignores the look and nods at Q.

Right.

Mycroft is sat in the left chair in front of M’s desk and Q falters for a moment, before setting his shoulders. He can sit in the right chair. It’ll be fine. 

Before he can reach either chair, however, Mycroft stands, steps across and sits again, leaving the left chair free for Q to take. 

Sometimes, Q does love his brothers. They’re usually good at speaking the same language, even when no one else does.

Of course, as soon as he thinks that, he’s sitting down and Mycroft is turning to glare at him while M looks vaguely confused from his own chair on the other side of the desk.

“So,” Q says like this is a casual visit, “what brings you here, today?”

“I had some business to attend to on behalf of Westminster,” Mycroft says. “And I thought I’d check in on my little brother while I was here, as it’s often hard to find him anywhere outside of work.”

Q rolls his eyes and doesn’t bother having this argument again. If Mycroft is going to call him out for working too much, Q has a novel’s worth of retorts and counter-arguments about the fact that Mycroft is never not working.

It’s only at this point, with M’s confusion almost palpable, that Q realises he may have forgotten to brief him about his family. To be fair, he’d had other issues to deal with when Mallory became M.

“You were abducted and then specifically targeted in a bomb attack,” Mycroft says, in a tone that would be mildly scolding on anyone else, but on him is absolutely furious.

Oh shit. Q forgot about the week of the toaster.

“I wasn’t aware you knew about that,” he says, hesitantly. It wasn’t like they saw each other often enough that a week without contact would send up any flags. He’d barely even been injured, and nothing had come of it except the new toaster.

“Of course I knew about it,” Mycroft snaps. “The Quartermaster of MI6 was held captive for six days; that’s not something I’m going to miss, especially not when I’m related to him.”

“Right,” Q says. He thinks for a moment and decides than if he’s going to be in trouble, he might as well be in all the trouble in one go. “But you never brought up the thing in Trafalgar Square Tesco. Did you know about that?”

Mycroft levels a look at Q that makes him feel eight years old again. His voice is patronising. “Yes, I knew about that. But Bond was there, the men were incompetent, and you handled it without getting injured.”

“I can look after myself without James’ help,” Q protests, and then has to work very hard to stay sitting upright with his hands in his lap, rather than sinking down into a sulk with his arms crossed. “If you’re just going to tell me off, can we do it down in Q-Branch? I have staff to supervise.”

“Very well,” Mycroft says, rising from his chair. 

M clears his throat. “A word, Q, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll wait outside,” Mycroft says, and goes. 

By the time the door closes behind Mycroft, M looks marginally less bewildered. His shoulders are back in their usual perfect posture, and he’s stopped leaning back so much like he’s trying to see the bigger picture.

“I was under the impression that your name was Ford Prefect,” he says, a slight twist to his body. “Of course: Adams, right?”

“Right,” Q says. “Sorry, I meant to tell you, but there was all that stuff with the merger and Nine Eyes and then Bond went off to Mexico and things we a little derailed. My name’s Sherrinford Holmes, but I really do prefer Q.”

He offers his hand to shake and M takes it, his mouth curling into a smile. 

“I never thought I’d see the day Mycroft Holmes was worried about someone,” he says, lowering his voice as though Mycroft might be listening outside, which is a fair concern.

“Oh, he’s worried about Sherlock all the time,” Q says, matching M’s tone, “I’m usually the good baby brother. And when I do get into trouble, I’m usually better at hiding it from him.”

“Not always, though,” M says, smile becoming a grin.

“Not always,” Q agrees. 

M dismisses him and Q goes outside to find Anthea actually having a conversation with Eve while Mycroft browses the little shelf of books behind Eve’s desk. Q groans. Eve and Anthea could destroy the world with absolutely zero effort if they so choose.

“Come on, then,” he says, and leads the way to the lifts. Down to Q-Branch, get the introductions and scolding out of the way, and then he’s clocking off early and they can all go to Spoons. He deserves the biggest bowl of cheesy chips with bacon that they’ll give him, and a few pints of lemonade. 

Plus, Mycroft would probably rather die than enter a Wetherspoons, which means Q won’t have to deal with him over dinner. Even better.

**Author's Note:**

> Keep notes:  
> \--Eve and Anthea could destroy the world with LESS than zero effort, but they're both benevolent goddesses and thus shall leave it be for now  
> \--this was going to include Bond's second interaction with Mycroft, possibly with other poeple watching, but then it got a little out of hand and I had to end before it become an epic. also becaues I'm exhausted. Maybe I'll come back and add that later when I haven't accidentally completed nanowrimo in 20 days  
> \--on a similar note - sad I didn't get R's reaction to meeting Mycroft, but again might come back for that later  
> \--I mean really fuck wetherspoons at the moment but fully loaded chips are the best thing


End file.
